U.S. DECIDES TO END SERIES OF EXPULSIONS, STRESSES 'LARGER ISSUES'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302440011-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: October 24, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302440011-0
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WASHINGTON POST
24 October 1986
U.S. Decides to End
Series of Expulsions,
Stresses 'Larger. Issues'
By David B. Ottaway
and John M. Goshko
Washington Post Staff Writers
The United States called a halt
yesterday to the tit-for-tat war of
diplomatic expulsions with the So-
viet Union as the administration
took stock of the damage done to
U.S. diplomatic and intelligence op-
erations in Moscow by the latest
Soviet measures.
State Department spokesman
Charles E. Redman said the United
States, in response to Soviet 're-
strictions imposed Wednesday on
the U.S. Embassy in Moscow,. will
apply "equal and reciprocal restric-
tions" against the Soviet Embassy
here.
Nevertheless, he announced no
new ouster of Soviet diplomats. And
U.S. officials made it clear that they
hoped the series of diplomatic ex-
pulsions by both sides would end.
"There seems to be common
ground in the mutual acknowledg-
ment of parity and reciprocity as
the foundation of our diplomatic
relationship," Redman said. "We
need now to get on with resolution
of the larger issues affecting U.S.-
Soviet relations and build on the
progress made in the discussions at
Reykjavik."
President Reagan, campaigning
for Republican Senate candidates in
the Midwest, also was upbeat yes-
terday in saying that all of the arms-
reduction proposals made by the
United States during the Iceland
summit remain on the bargaining
table. In responding to a speech
Wednesday by Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan urged
the Soviets to press ahead on inter-
mediate-range missile negotiations.
The Soviet Union, retaliating for
the U.S. expulsion Tuesday of 55
Soviet diplomats, on Wednesday ex-
pelled five more American diplo-
mats and barred 260 local Soviet
employes from working for the U.S.
Embassy?a move administration
officials yesterday said had dealt a
"paralyzing" blow to its operations.
(Americans said the embassy prob-
ably had fewer than 200 Soviet em-
ployes.) The Soviets also placed a
limit on embassy guests and Amer-
icans traveling to Moscow on tem-
porary assignment each year, and
barred the hiring of third-country
nationals.
"This was a very shrewd retal-
iation," said one U.S. official. "It's
wiped out our operational infra-
structure there."
Several officials said the Soviet
action would require a redesign of
the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to get
rid, of all nonessential personnel,
resulting probably in a residual
corps of professionals.
Redman said the Soviet action
"without question" will impair the
U.S. ability to monitor events in the
Soviet Union, but he insisted that
"this is something we foresaw as we
went into this."
One administration source said
the Soviet measures will also seri-
ously affect the U.S. ability to carry
out intelligence activities within the
Soviet Union. But another source
said the information allegedly pro-
vided in 1985 to the Soviets by CIA
defector Edward L. Howard had
already crippled CIA operations in
Moscow.
It was because CIA operations
were so badly hurt, this source
added, that Central Intelligence
Agency Director William J. Casey
supported the White House decision
to expel 55 Soviet diplomats, reduc-
ing the number of Soviets at their
embassy here and consulate in San
Francisco to 251, the same number
of U.S. diplomats working currently
in Moscow and Leningrad.
That move, along with earlier
expulsions of Soviet diplomats at
the United Nations, was hailed by
several senior administration offi-
cials on Wednesday as "a decapita-
tion of the Soviet intelligence net-
work in the United States," as one
put it.
Yesterday, however, other ad-
ministration officials indicated that
they felt the Soviets had more than
gotten even.
With Soviet employes barred
from working at the U.S. Embassy
and consulate, Washington may be
forced to send 80 or more support
workers as replacements, effective-
ly reducing the number of full-time
U.S. diplomats serving in the Soviet
Union to fewer than 170 because of
the new overall ceiling of 251, ac-
cording to a senior State Depart-
ment official.
While the Soviets are working in
the United States under the same
restrictions, they only employ 10.
Americans at their embassy here.
Redman said he did not know
whether the U.S. government could'.
force them to quit. In addition, the
new ceiling does not apply to the
300 Soviets working at the U.N.
Secretariat and other agencies in
New York, nor to the 218 Soviets
working at the Soviet mission to the
United Nations.
Approximately 25 percent of the
Soviets employed by the Secretar-
iat are intelligence officers, accord-
ing to a recent report on espionage
published by the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence.
State Department officials yes-
terday made clear in private con-
versations with reporters that they
were bitterly disappointed by the
White House- decision to expel the
55 Soviet diplomats. Those officials
thought that the move was provoc-
ative and poorly timed, since it fol-
lowed the Iceland summit and re-
newed optimism about the pros-
pects of a U.S.-Soviet arms accord.
Several officials said they thought
that the department had lost what
one called "a biggie" in the inter-
agency discussion over how to re-
spond to the Soviet expulsion of five
U.S. diplomats on Sunday.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302440011-0
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302440011-0
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At a White House meeting with
Reagan Monday, Attorney General
Edwin Meese III, CIA Director
Casey and national security affairs
adviser John M. Poindexter argued
strongly for carrying out a U.S.
warning conveyed earlier to the
Soviets, according to administration
sources. The warning was that
Washington would force the parity
issue by expelling more Soviets if
Moscow retaliated for the earlier
U.S. expulsion of 25 diplomats
working at the Soviet U.N. mission.
Some State Department officials
were unhappy with what they
thought was Secretary of State
George P. Shultz's failure to fight
the decision harder, even though he
knew there was virtually unanimous
opposition to it from the depart-
ment's lower ranks.
Some State Department officials
said that Jack F. Matlock Jr., the
chief Soviet specialist on the White
House National Security Council,
had been the driving force behind
the hard-line administration atti-
tude toward the Soviets since the
Soviet arrest Aug. 30 of American
reporter Nicholas Daniloff.
One administration official said
Matlock had initially proposed that
the United States expel five to eight
Soviet U.N. diplomats for every day
Moscow continued to hold Daniloff.
He also strongly favored forcing the
issue of parity between Soviet and
American diplomats, the source
said.
Congress was already pressing
the administration to take action to
curb Soviet espionage in the United
States and demanding that the num-
ber of Soviets be reduced to that of
the U.S. diplomats in the Soviet
Union. But Congress had urged us-
ing the ceiling .of 320 persons es-
tablished in a 1980 U.S.-Soviet
agreement and in force until the
United States unilaterally lowered
the number to 251 this week.
The State Department, which
has 251 diplomats stationed in Mos-
cow and Leningrad, had a plan un-
der way to increase the number by
80 to replace some local Soviet em-
ployes and arrive at the 320 figure
over 18 months to two years.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302440011-0